Gary Bagley Cartoon via Barry Ritholtz

Love the rocket.

Bring Back Bush! Bring Back Bush!

"This suckers going down."











For sale here: dual-purpose gold cyanide capsules: $2000 per 1 oz. pill. Buy now!

Life part 2

Wow, that last one was depressing.

Okay, let me get some tissues, dust myself off.

Mr. President, you've got the right tone, and are getting up to speed as fast as you can, I understand, so here's how we can get out of this:

Bring in guys like Peter Schiff, Nuriel Roubini, Nassim Taleb, Benoit Mandelbrot, George Soros who all basically saw this coming and know how the world works. They won't all agree on how to handle the problem, but they have no bias to save failing institutions, and have no connection to the failures of the past.

More importantly, they actually understand what is happening here.

Take drastic measures: Like my 3 Point Plan to Save Mankind from last year:

1) Stop All Bailouts. Every one, and what we've already started, claw it back.

2) Guarantee All Bank Deposits. No limit, and guarantee all money markets (Basically, nationalize the banks).

3) Cut Corporate Tax Rates To Zero.

Add a few more points:

4) Legalize Drugs: Regulate and Tax

5) Adopt The T. Boone Pickens Clean Energy Plan -market centric, not government subsidy centric.

6) Tax Oil

7) Flat Income Tax

8) Commit to some sort of loose currency peg to gold = dollar strength.

This will piss everyone off and save the Union.

Yes, we can!

Death part 1

The entire NYT Editorial Board and therefore the rest of the MSM has taken the baton on the Banker Bonus Bailout Bonanza, so thankfully we are done there.

Here's what's next:

Total meltdown.

Hello Barry. The stimulus bill is a complete disaster, too small, yet pork-laden. Welcome to Washington.

Also Barack, I think the idea going forward is to appoint outsiders to all cabinet posts, outsiders that pay taxes. There is nothing gained by having the Washington-Wall Street Axis-of-Evil types on your staff.

Much more importantly though, you are completely inside the box with your economic advisors.

There are two distinct schools of economic thought regarding macro policy, yet you only have one viewpoint represented, ad infinitum.

I expected better of you. I know you are open and connected so please hear this:

The Keynesian school of which all your guys subscribe says monetary activism, i.e. the relentless printing of money (fiat currency, mind you) can control and soften the business cycle.

But there is another school, a more practical, and even yogic school, called the Austrian School.

It is called the Austrian School because it was formulated by Arnold Schwarzenegger. . .
No, that last statement is completely false.

The Austrian School says that cycles, namely the business cycle is inevitable like the seasons, the ebb and flow of life so to speak. We collectively get excessively greedy, in this case an easy credit 25 year bull market, and then the bubble bursts and we become excessively fearful -a process only a few months old.

And the Austrian School says that we need the shake-out, we need the dislocation, we need the pain, to be able to make the eventual transition from fear to hope. When we try to deny the pain by pumping money into the system, we simply prolong the disease.

In other words, the Austrian School says that by intervening in the seasons, we just prolong the Winter.

But, here's what's worse, even the Keynesians like Bernanke and Krugman believe this stimulus will be too small anyway. . .

So, a gentle "What the fuck?' may be in order.

And, I'm not even sure Keynes would support what we are doing right now. Here's why. In Keynes time, we were savers, and our country produced tangible goods that other countries bought. Today, everyone is in deep debt, and our best export is incredibly bad financial advice.

So in Keynes'day, we had much to back up our debts and currency. Today, nothing but air and obesity food product, so there is an absolute danger in printing money like this.

This is not a case of just throwing the kitchen sink at the problem, and saying, "Hey, well we did our best." and walking away knowing that the cycle will eventually reverse anyway.

This is gonna make things so much worse because we will have no way to pay this bill, other than to continue printing money, which could lead to, no joke, the break-up of the Union. In fact, if we do not reverse course, this will happen.

Maybe this is for the best.

More to cover, next post.

Trading Desk Survivor

Hey, that whole new job thing I'm doing right now, the precious metals and all that. . .

Well, I survived Round 1 of the carnage, but might not make Round 2 of Trading Desk Survivor, so before I get canned, let me make the bull case for gold, before I get so angry at my firm, I can't make a rational call on it.

I think it may be the single greatest trading opportunity since Google in 05.

Great Britain and Ireland are near collapse, Citi and B of A are effectively nationalized as the bailout money given them has exceeded their market caps.

And there is a broadening disconnect between the futures/ETFs and the demand for the hard asset, as people do not want the paper. I am seeing this firsthand.

Keep in mind, Gold Spot is now over $900 on a day when the dollar STRENGTHENED, which is very bullish, as dollar weakness (soon to come) usually means gold strength and vice versa, so when gold moves up on a strong dollar day, the market is telling you something.

See, the ETF, GLD, is run by Street-Tracks which as far as I know is fine, but the major silver ETF is run by Barclays, which like Great Britain and the GB Pound is on the verge of collapse.

The global financial system is beyond repair without major dollar devaluation, that's okay, we need to reconstruct a better system anywho, something resembling the barter system would be cool.

. . .and we just had a massive earthquake here, which is awesome. Either that or a terrorist attack on my building, which will be par for the course in 09.

Basically, we are in deep, the only place to be is in gold.

Happy trades!

Also, my buddy Matty (pictured above) is a very cool dude. I knew him for months before I knew he was on TV. He's got a book coming out soon. You'll hear about it here.

And yes, I love you, Barack Hussein, you have some major problems on your economic team but that is a post for another time.

For now, yes we can!

Yes We Can

More of This, Please. or Walk The Aisle.

Before we get into "The Moment", of which I am very excited, let's first meditate on this guy.

On the way to work last week, my eyes teared up, mostly because I was going to work.

No, my eyes teared up as the NPR guy told how Chelsey B. "Sully" Sullenberger walked the aisle TWICE of the downed US Air Jet which he somehow landed on the Hudson River.

Walking the aisle making sure no one was left behind.

You see, he was the pilot of that plane, and he took responsibility for all his passengers.

He put their lives before his.

I doubt he makes more than 200k a year.

The contrast between this guy and any one of the bank CEOs is too grotesque a picture to contemplate for more than a few seconds, so we'll end it right here.

Fuck them, they are dinosaurs. This guy is the new, new thing.

Accountability, honor, valor, humility.

Walk the aisle.